Driving Shadows: Vern
Driving Shadows: Vern is a sidegame to Driving Shadows: Antimatter Introspection and the only complete game in the Driving Shadows series. It takes place at the end of Chapter 3 and focuses on the backstory of Vern. Plot summary To be added. Gameplay The current version of Driving Shadows: Vern uses an unconventional item system where each item has a certain 'capacity', which can be upgraded, and all items are restored to their full capacity after each battle. HP and MP are fully healed after each battle as well, making each battle a stand-alone situation. The game also contains the Autosummon Bonus system, which is a special function for Vern which is unavailable in the main game. Development history Origins SC10 had some vague ideas about Vern's backstory when working on Chapter 2, but because of the main game's original intention to be a 'chain game', he had decided to leave the details of his backstory to other people. However, after the announcement of Driving Shadows: Furis and Driving Shadows: Prelude of Inscription, alongside Rodpop's announcement of a possible Elice sidegame at some point, SC10 began to consider creating a similar sidegame for Vern's backstory. The idea grew as SC10 was asking Rodpop about certain plotpoints in Chapter 3, and began to see ways in which he could fit Rodpop's answers into Vern's sidegame. Many of the plot elements in Driving Shadows: Vern came from the desire to answer questions such as how Ryneth planned to steal Vern's monsters, where Elice heard about the Confluence, why Vern seems to have a grudge against Maelach, and how exactly Lucia (called "Other Elice" at the time) fit into things. He started work on the game and made an official announcement on April 15, 2011. He then released the completed game on April 19, 2011. Version 2 As can probably be inferred from the fact that the game was completed in four days, its original release was quite obviously rushed, primarly because SC10 was determined to release it before Chapter 4 was finished (though he actually rushed more than he needed to, as he still had nine days left when he finished). The main issues with the game were an absurd amount of difficulty and a lack of balance between the monsters. These issues were fixed by a rebalancing of the enemies and an introduction of Autosummon Bonus for the second release on April 24, 2011. A further small update was released on April 30, 2011, to make the final boss weaker. Remix After Rodpop remade several Pirayl maps that also appeared in Driving Shadows: Vern, a new version was planned to update these maps. However, while testing this, SC10 found himself dissatisfied with the uninspired battles of the game, particularly in Athaera, which was simply a clone of its Chapter 2 incarnation. The main goal of the remix thus became to make the game somewhat enjoyable to play rather than simply a backstory dump. The item capacity system was introduced at this point, along with a completely remade version of Athaera and some rewriting to fix minor timeline issues. The remix was released on June 15, 2011. Two small updates were made on the same day: one to add Maelach's new Facemaker set, and one to fix some issues reported by KoE's beta testing. On June 19, 2011, a further update was released to remove the pre-battle conversations after failing a fight once, and to fix some small bugs. Two further updates were released on June 21 and June 22; it's unclear whether anyone even knows what these actually entailed. SC10 certainly doesn't. Barn Shadow Operations During a time when the group were having fun running Driving Shadows lines through Translation Party, SC10 naturally took the joke much too far by running the entirety of Driving Shadows: Vern through it and releasing it as Barn Shadow Operations. The game played exactly like the previous versions, but with all the dialogue translated into nonsense. It also included an option to play the game starting at level 50, so that the player can enjoy the silly dialogue without worrying about the battles. It is unclear whether anyone actually played it. 'Final' version This version grew out of the desire to rewrite Lucia's scene at the end of the game, to acknowledge the new model of Harmonisation and make Lucia's character closer to Rodpop's vision. In addition to a full rewrite of Lucia's ending scene, it also updated many aspects of the game to their current state in the main game, such as the summon menu, the monsters' stats, the chest messages and the attribute symbols. This version was released on September 26, 2011 and is the most recently released version of the game. Future versions SC10 has shown a strong dissatisfaction with the entire project in recent times, even expressing the view that it would probably have been better had it not even been released. He has grown to dislike most of the plot aside from Lucia's role and the backstory regarding Trianna and Dana's meeting with Elice, and also dislikes the 'trial and error' style of the gameplay in addition to the fact that many of the fights are based more on luck than skill. His current view is that the game is adequate as a backstory reference for the time being, but he certainly wouldn't be content to release the game in its current state to an outside audience, which is why he has often attempted to begin a full remake of the game. However, his dislike for the concept of the game in general has resulted in a lack of motivation for this, since the amount of modifications that would need to be made to bring it to a satisfactory state would take a huge amount of effort. For this reason, it is uncertain whether a remake of the game will ever be released. If there were to be a remake, it would likely feature: a completely revised version of Vern's system in which he can level up his monsters and select skills for them to learn; the adaptation of Lucia's story to take place in "commentary" scenes scattered throughout the game rather than only appearing at the ending; the large extension of the opening in order to make Arthor a more three-dimensional character; the establishment of Maelach having been a customer of Arthor's for a long time and having been known by Vern since childhood; the alteration of the 'climax' of the opening to involve Vern standing up to Arthor and Maelach by refusing to put the Stone Golem in a Beastgem, resulting in Maelach's torturing Vern with dark magic in order to force him to give up the monster and ultimately in Vern leaving Arthor due to his inaction while his 'son' was being tortured; a very large extension of Vern's time spent with Eland's resistance movement, including several new dungeons and two new playable characters as well as several major NPCs, serving to give a bigger picture of the state of Pirayl at the time and possibly involving a skirmish between the resistance and Elice, who is at the time still with Ryneth; the extension of the plot involving Sable at Athaera; and the heavy modification of the climax to include a more complex method of attack utilising all of the resistance's forces, the removal of the line stating that Maelach killed Arthor; and an extension of the final battle between Vern and Maelach, involving Maelach manipulating antimatter to make him relive the time when Maelach forced him to give up the golem, and Lucia saving Vern from that using Harmonisation, with an unexpected side-effect of this intervention allowing him to summon all three of his monsters at once to defeat Maelach.